News

Education news this week has given school leaders and teachers new insight into what to expect on inspection, exams and the national effort to help pupils’ to recover from lost learning during the Covid pandemic.

Ofsted is making a phased return to graded inspections this term and on Monday revealed how it was changing the way it will assess schools to take into account the impact of Covid.

The inspectorate has said it will not be judging the quality of education provided during the first national lockdown and will not be using teacher-assessed grades to assess how effective a school curriculum is. The watchdog has also said that a school will not be given an “inadequate” judgement if its problems are solely down to the impact of Covid-19.

The issue of supporting pupils to “catch up” has also dominated headlines this week.

A new report from the Education Policy Institute think tank has warned that up to £15 billion will be needed to ensure that pupils catch up on lost learning caused by the pandemic.

The government’s education recovery tsar, Sir Kevan Collins, has also said that billions need to be dedicated to the catch-up plan and warned that teachers should not be asked “to do any more for no more”.

Sir Kevan has called for schools to be given more control over Covid catch-up tutoring by allowing them to identify who they want to deliver the support.

His call came as Tes revealed this week that a quarter of the government’s latest Covid catch-up fund has been recycled from existing education budgets and is not new money coming to the Department for Education.

There has also been much for schools to digest on the running of GCSEs and A levels, both this summer and beyond.

Ofqual has told schools that once they submit their GCSE and A-level grades, exam boards will request evidence, which schools will need to provide within 48 hours.

Ofqual’s interim chief regulator, Simon Lebus, has also said it is undecided whether A levels and GCSEs will return in their usual format in 2022 because of the amount of disruption this cohort has already faced.

Tes ended the week with two big stories looking at the longer-term impact of Covid.

We revealed how private schools are looking at selling remote-learning courses overseas to boost their income as they try to recover pandemic-related costs.

And this long read explores how the signs suggest that after the pandemic, it is a question of when - not if - online GCSEs and A levels arrive.

You can find all of these stories and much more coverage of news that matters to teachers and schools here.

Features

When teachers come across a problem to solve, then it makes sense that they look to education research for the solution. But before you jump to a journal to find the answer, you need to think how the “wicked” learning environment of the classroom might need consideration. Professor Dylan Wiliam says there are things to keep in mind before you start implementing a new research-informed approach.

Anxiety can be a debilitating condition - however, for many teachers, by making small adjustments to their working day, it becomes much more manageable, says leader Emma Stokes.

Organising how teacher-assessed grades (TAGs) will work in secondary schools and sixth forms is a challenge for many school leaders. We find out how two schools are approaching the task of running in-school assessments for GCSEs and A levels.

Anecdote and opinion dominate debates about children’s exclusion from school. But what’s really happening with exclusions? Loic Menzies and Abi Angus attempt to get to the bottom of what the evidence says about how we should handle this divisive issue.

Faced with huge global issues such as climate change, young people are increasingly losing faith in the future, says headteacher David Alcock. He explains why he set about putting negative media reporting into perspective by showing students that, historically, things are actually getting better.